Google's AI Max for Search: Enhanced Automation for Ad Campaigns

Google's AI Max is now rolling out globally, offering automated enhancements to Search campaigns. This new feature promises to improve targeting and creative content. Here's what you need to know to leverage AI Max effectively.

What is AI Max?

AI Max is a feature within existing Search campaigns that can be toggled on or off. Enabling it provides automated targeting and creative enhancements. According to Google, AI Max helps capture missed search queries through broad match and keywordless tech.

How Search Term Matching Works

Google uses contextual, behavioral, and semantic data to decide when and to whom an ad should appear. Its AI learns from both keyword and keywordless matches. It also learns from your creative assets and URLs to surface more relevant searches.

Improvements to Automatically Created Assets

Google has rebranded automatically created assets, generating headlines and descriptions from landing pages, ads, and keywords. Google insists it has improved this feature with clearer calls-to-action. These improvements are especially visible when paired with final URL expansion.

Leveraging URL Expansion

This feature works like Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs). Google directs traffic to the most relevant URLs on a client’s site when it predicts better performance. Note that it must be paired with text customization.

Finding and Implementing AI Max

Finding AI Max involves a few steps within the normal Search campaign setup. Better reporting was a highly requested improvement. AI Max offers new reports to track performance.

Important Caveats to Consider

Keep a few important caveats in mind when enabling AI Max for Search. Google has shared case studies from early adopters. The best approach is to test it in one of your Search campaigns and directly track performance changes.

Experimenting with AI Max

Google Experiments makes testing easy. Split traffic 50/50 between a campaign with AI Max enabled and one without. This provides a clear comparison.